Donald Trump is “inventing fraud” in California’s primary elections, and likely to ramp up unfounded allegations when more races go against him, pro-democracy experts have warned.
While the US president has used this playbook for years – from his loss at the Emmys as a reality TV star to his defeat in the 2020 presidential election – election integrity campaigners fear this time could be different.
“California’s election is not the problem here,” said Omar Noureldin, senior vice-president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a pro-democracy watchdog group. “The problem is that we have a president in the Oval Office who continues to lie and sow doubt over elections instead of facing accountability from voters.”
Trump lost his cool after a journalist pushed back on his latest attempt to sow doubt in election results, storming out of a Meet the Press interview which aired this weekend.
The outburst showcased a feature of Trump’s approach if results don’t go his way: he quickly declares them rigged, rallying his supporters and rightwing media to spread similar messages. California is the latest – and largest – test of this technique in this election cycle.
This year’s midterms will serve as an example of how the president will wield the federal government’s power at cities and states in a crusade to ensure his party maintains power.
In contrast to 2020, when his false claims of voting fraud helped set the stage for an insurrection inside the Capitol in the wake of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory, Trump now has an administration stocked with loyalists – and election deniers – who may not stand up to an attempt to undermine election results.
He has few vocal detractors left among the Republicans in Congress to speak out against these efforts. He has a rightwing media ecosystem poised to advance his talking points.
“The president keeps inventing fraud in elections he loses,” said Edgar Lin, Protect Democracy’s deputy impact director. “Now he’s aiming federal power at California’s locally run vote. This is the same playbook he always reaches for, only this time he has the muscle and federal tools to act on it.”
Trump has repeatedly called the California results into question as ballot-counting continued in the country’s most populous state. In the governor’s race, Democrat Xavier Becerra is projected to advance to the general election, and Republican Steve Hilton is poised to advance over Democrat Tom Steyer.
California has a so-called “jungle primary” system, where the top two vote-getters advance to a general election regardless of party affiliation. Because it is a large state that favors voter access, its election results can take weeks to count – leaving a vacuum for misinformation to thrive.
All eligible voters in California receive mail ballots, and most voters vote by mail. The state also allows a grace period for ballots to arrive after election day, and it gives voters 22 days to cure any ballot errors, like mismatched signatures. The system is highly accurate, but can take time.
Trump claimed last week that the state’s elections were “under investigation by the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles”, though provided no details on what was being investigated. The justice department sent a federal prosecutor to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles late last week. Bill Essayli, Trump’s appointee for first assistant US attorney for the central district of California, claimed there are “multiple election fraud investigations under way”, though did not provide details.
In the LA mayor’s race, Trump said it was “not possible” that former reality TV star Spencer Pratt could have lost. Pratt, a registered Republican, was initially in second place behind Democratic mayor Karen Bass, but as more ballots were counted, Democrat Nithya Raman pulled ahead of him.
“3rd World Nation,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday. “Rigged Elections! Now they’ll be working on great guy Steve Hilton. Won’t have results for, possibly, TWO WEEKS, according to officials.”
California’s elections officials sought to explain the counting process in advance of election day, knowing voters would have questions about the lengthy time period to count.
“California has a large electorate,” the California secretary of state’s office said in a statement on Monday. “With more than 23 million registered voters across 58 counties, ensuring a thorough and accurate count takes time. Votes go through numerous verification steps including signature verification, tabulation, audits, and reporting of results to the Office of the Secretary of State.”
After Meet the Press journalist Kristen Welker pushed back on Trump’s claims about 2020 and the California elections, he said: “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.”
Trump has made election denial a central part of his political movement. After voters elected Biden in 2020, he unsuccessfully sought to overturn results in multiple states and pressured Congress not to certify the results as a crowd rallied at the Capitol on January 6 2021, culminating in the insurrection.
Among election advocates, concern for democracy – and about repeated attempts to undermine election results and voting access – has been persistently high since Trump retook the White House last year. They have “seen the different ways that the administration is trying to throw the kitchen sink at sowing doubt in our elections”, said Noureldin, of Common Cause.
The president who cried wolf
In his second term, Trump has used the power of the federal government in attempts to limit access to voting and to investigate his previous election fixations. The federal government seized 2020 ballots in Fulton county, Georgia. His administration has sought access to millions of voters’ data via the states, resulting in ongoing lawsuits. He has tried to assert federal dominance over election administration, a task largely left to state and local jurisdictions. He has prosecuted his political foes while attempting to create a slush fund for his allies who believe they were persecuted by the federal government under prior administrations. He has pushed for legislation to add barriers to voting and called for mail voting to be banned.
In the past week, in addition to his repeated unfounded claims about California’s elections and his outburst on Meet the Press, Trump suggested Bill Pulte, the newly appointed acting director of national intelligence, could investigate election issues. “You may find out some things about the rigged elections,” he told reporters of Pulte.
Stephen Richer, a former Republican county recorder in Maricopa county, Arizona, faced pressure campaigns from within his party to undermine election results. He lost his primary to retain his office in 2024. He called Trump going after California’s elections “utterly predictable”.
“He claimed the recent Virginia redistricting election was fraudulent. He claimed his loss to Ted Cruz in the 2016 Iowa caucus was fraudulent. He complained the Emmy awards were ‘rigged’ when The Apprentice didn’t win,” Richer said via email. “This boy has pathetically cried wolf scores of times. If it was your child, you’d tell him to grow up. But I guess as president of the United States, we tolerate it.”
Noureldin of Common Cause said there are a few ways to fight back against efforts to undermine elections. Republicans in Congress need to begin pushing back on their own party, he said, adding that the courts, and pro-democracy groups who file lawsuits against these attempts, should again serve as a bulwark. People can organize protests and voter education campaigns, he suggested.
And voters can turn out to vote against his agenda, registering their discontent, Noureldin said. While Trump himself is not on the ballot this year, Noureldin said his actions show he doesn’t want his party to lose control of Congress, because he doesn’t want to face accountability.
“Trump is kind of allergic to accountability,” he said. “He’s willing to throw out entire elections in order to make sure that no one can hold them to account.”
Richer, the former Maricopa county recorder, warned the problem could grow during the general election, where control for the US House could come down to a few competitive districts in California, providing ample inroads for misinformation.
“California needs to be prepared, and they need to do everything in their power – without fundamentally changing their voting model – to speed up their tabulation,” he said, adding that it should allocate more resources to election offices so they can have staff counting around the clock.
What Trump could do this year is a “wild card,” Richer said. “Unlike 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024, some key law enforcement positions are now occupied by people with questionable morals, a strong interest in pleasing Trump, and who accordingly indulge this stolen election nonsense.”
Derek Tisler, an election security expert at the Brennan Center’s elections and government program, said Trump’s election lies have not changed, but now his “megaphone for pushing them is bigger and offers a veneer of credibility”.
“Since 2020, election officials have been pushing back on these false claims and educating their voters on how elections work. They know that efforts to claim rigged elections will appear again any time President Trump and his allies see results that they don’t like,” Tisler said.
“It’s the responsibility of all public leaders to put democracy over partisan gain and stand up for the work that election officials do to run secure and accurate elections.”